A third of the land's surface is populated with cities which stretch miles up towards the Ionosphere and are also tunnelled deep into the Earth's crust.

The world is united - war within the atmosphere of a single planet can only lead to total destruction. Government is carried out by Executives, each having full powers within a certain area. The Food, Health, Pleasure and Enforcement Executives are centred in Alpolis, a city covering what was once an independent country - Switzerland - and it is here that the most recent Executive, TIME, exists.

People live for fun, not to work. Most tasks are performed by robots, so life is quite easy. Only 10% of the population still works, and then only for fun or out of a sense of social duty. Food is plentiful, the main source being a fungus grown in huge vats under artificial light. Luxury foods, such as meat, are a rarity. Communications have improved so as to transform society: holophones connect all homes across the Space Federation so it is possible to be in direct contact with many alien species light years across space. Travel on earth is done by hovrail, jetcopter or stratocruiser, so that the longest journey need take no more than an hour.

The average Earther lives for two hundred and fifty years and the ageing process only begins during the last fifty years of life. Life-prolonging drugs, called Anagathics, are freely available, and transplant surgery is now a simple operation. Unfortun- ately, because people live longer, there are many problems. There is overcrowding and very little to do which has resulted in a rapid increase in violent crime. With so many people needing new hearts, lungs and other organs there is a shortage of spare parts for use in transplant surgery, so the Enforcement Executive has passed a Termination Code. All violent crimes are punishable by painless death. The Enforcement Executive has had sensors set up to catch criminals, especially Bodybrokers who deal illegally in organs for surgery. If Energy Weapons are used by criminals, for instance, a police jetcopter will be there in seconds.

Earth, using Hyperdrive, faster-than-light travel, has established itself as head of the Space Federation, which includes all the earth colonies and alien planets. The Navy patrols the colonies: Lastlanding, Proxima Centauri, Ascension and so on, as well as the alien worlds: Kelados, Sundew, Dyskra, Clyss, Rigel Prime, the Hive and others. Contact with alien life forms is commonplace and the colony ships of the twenty-fourth century are still approaching the centre of the galaxy.

How to Travel in Time

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Travel through time involves crossing a fourth dimension, 'Null-space' or the 'Void' as it is known. This dimension joins all points in time and space from the beginning of the universe to its end. Imagine time as a cable. Earth's Timeline (or past, present and future) is a single strand of this cable stretching from Earth's beginning to the end of time. The timelines of other planets run alongside this and weave around each other, because events on one planet affect things on another. These strands, or Timelines, are insulated from the fourth dimension in the same way that an electrical wire is insulated. At certain points there are holes in the insulation allowing travel from one point on the wire through this hole to a different point on this or another wire. In this way a Time Machine may move from one 'Timehole' to another and from one point in space to another via Null-space.
The Timeholes are formed when the fabric of time is damaged by unknown forces. They can be larger, but are usually less than five miles across. Timeholes come and go as new damage occurs and older Timeholes close up naturally. The Monitoring Section is responsible for keeping the map of current Timeholes. Your up-to-date map is at the beginning of the book. At least one hole has been there for a long time - the Eiger Vault, near the TIME Building in the Alps. It is thought to be a permanent Timehole and your Time Machine, Falcon's Wing, is kept there along with those of the Lords of TIME and other Agents. Some Timeholes are safer than others and it is possible to go back in time only to find that the hole through which you travelled has closed up, trapping the unfortunate traveller in the past. Time passes at the same rate in all Timeholes as on Earth. If you begin a journey to a Timehole ten minutes after somebody else does you will arrive ten minutes later than them. Only those with Psychic Awareness can navigate across Null-space.

Game Rules

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ATTACK
In certain paragraphs you will have the chance to attack an enemy. When you choose to do so, you will be asked to make an Attack Roll. To do this, roll two dice and add the numbers together. You will be told which paragraph to turn to next, depending on your score. In all combats you are more likely to succeed if your score is high than if it is low

ATTACK MODIFIER
Whenever you make an Attack Roll you must add or subtract your Attack Modifier to the dice score. Your Attack Modifier may change as the adventure unfolds and you should keep a note of this on your Agent Profile (at beginning of adventure). To begin with your Attack Modifier is zero.

EVASION
In certain cases you may need to avoid the attack of an enemy or escape from a difficult situation. You will be asked to make an Evasion Roll, to which you must add or subtract your Evasion Modifier. This works in the same way as the Attack Roll and Attack Modifier as described above. Your initial Evasion Modifier is also zero.

POWERS OF THE MIND
Some paragraphs will offer you the chance to make a mental attack, either a Thinkstrike or Power of Will. Make an Attack Roll, just as if you were attacking normally, but add or subtract your Thinkstrike or Power of Will Modifier, not your Attack Modifier. In all other ways mental attacks work in the same way as a physical attack. To begin with your Thinkstrike and Power of Will Modifiers are zero, as noted on your Agent Profile.

PSYCHIC AWARENESS
Your Psychic Awareness operates at all times and you will be told when you have discovered anything of interest.

ENDURANCE
You, Falcon, start the adventure with 20 points of Endurance. If you are wounded in combat, suffer something unpleasant such as an acid atmosphere without a space suit, or become exhausted, you will lose Endurance points. A running total of your Endurance should be kept on your Agent Profile. If at any time you fall to zero Endurance or less you are dead and your adventure is over. Endurance points can be regained by visiting the Autodoc in your Time Machine (see equipment list) and you
will be told when you can use your Autodoc.

SCORING
You will notice as you use this book that certain paragraph numbers are followed by a letter in brackets. If you wish to score your performance as Special Agent Falcon, you will need to make a list of the letters following these numbers on the box provided on your Agent Profile every time you come to one of these paragraphs. If you should be killed or fail in your adventure, you should delete your current recorded letters except for all the Qs which must be kept and begin again. Each letter corresponds to a score, and you will be given a rating, depending on what the total of your scores is. The letter scores may be found at the back of the second book of this series, Mechanon. This is necessary, since printing the scores in this book would allow you to find out what the right decisions to take in this adventure are!

Equipment

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Standard Issue for TIME Special Agents
ITEM i: MODEL A3 TIME MACHINE [see accompanying specifications]
Your own Time Machine, Falcon's Wing, is silver with bright scarlet markings and is the eleventh machine capable of travel through time ever built. Its cost cannot be computed, since it involves the use of certain materials and scientific skills which are priceless. The silver and scarlet hull will withstand enormous pressure, heat and exposure to harmful gasses and liquids, as .well as providing protection from radiation. The six hydraulic legs which support the machine are extended when it aterialises in a new Timehole, to provide stability on uneven ground. The Main Access is operated by invisible Tractor Beams (energy beams that can be used to grip and lift) that will draw the Time Traveller up into the cabin, to rest on the Access Disc. This disc is matter but is changed to air as you move through it by the Molecular Converter (see Item 4). The pressurised cabin is lined with instruments and gadgets. The crash couch is moulded to fit your shape and can be moved up to the command console or up into the Flyer (see Item 6). The air inside the machine is kept pure by the life support unit and can be flushed out and replaced within ten seconds. The
Main Access will work only when its Memory Scanner recognises your own brain patterns. Specially sensitive cameras and power floodlights are mounted on top of the Machine. The Variac Drive, which forces the Machine into null-space, is housed beneath the deck and is controlled through your computer (CAIN, see Item 7).

ITEM2: HOLOGRAM GENERATOR
Each Time Machine is equipped with a Hologram Generator - very important if the First Law of TIME is to be obeyed. The Generator changes the appearance of the Machine by casting a hologram around it, so the computer can make the Machine look like a small wood, hayrick or grassy hill etc, which is very lifelike unless you are within two metres of the Machine itself. This stops people in history being curious at the sight of a highly technological machine.

ITEM 3: HOLO-DETECTOR
Due to the existence of Hologram Generators you may find it difficult to see other Time Machines. As a member of the Time Police you have been given a Hologram-detector which is portable and operates to a range of fifty metres. This will reveal the presence of a hologram and therefore another Time Machine.

ITEM 4: MOLECULAR CONVERTOR
Each Time Machine is equipped with a Molecular Converter, a device which uses the rarest of all elements, Polybdenum, as its fuel. Small articles, placed in the Converter, are transformed into whatever the computer decides. In this way, Time Travellers have disguises which allow them to pass undetected amongst the intelligent beings of other times. CAIN, your computer, carries information about the Timeholes shown on your map, so that the blueprints required by the Converter to make the disguises accurate, are usually available. Your Psionic Helmet, for instance, can be turned into a legionary's helmet, while keeping its modern powers.

ITEM 5: AUTODOC [see accompanying specifications]
This is a couch-like device which has needles, a drip, a blood supply and surgical robo-arms. You may lie in the Autodoc during the time taken to travel from one Timehole to another, for instance, and come out healed, restoring your Endurance by up to twelve points. You will be told when you can use your Autodoc.

ITEM 6: FLYER [see accompanying specification]
Your crash-couch swivels up onto the platform of your flyer when you wish to use it. The flyer is a small hover-raft which is catapulted out of the Time Machine through the Launch Doors, two sections on top of the hull that slide apart. Once safely away from the Machine the Ion Drive can be cut in, giving the flyer a top speed many times the speed of sound (Mach 6). It can hover which allows you to use it as an observation platform, but it is too small to carry a Hologram Generator and should only be used when strictly necessary. Fortunately, its Ion Drive is almost soundless. You are also issued with a Homing Beacon, which, when activated, will make the flyer move to its location as quickly as possible. The flyer is then piloted by its micro computer. The Beacon is magnetic, and about the size of a die.

ITEM 7: CAIN [Cybernetic Artificial Intelligence Nexus]
CAIN is one of the most advanced computers known to man. Its data banks offer information on all subjects and historical data on all Federation and alien planets. Its memory banks are continuously updated with information concerning the Time-1 holes and it is able to link with the massive memory banks of the TIME Service Computer at the Eiger Vault. A holophone, through which you can contact any other holophone in the Federation, is built into CAIN and you also have access to most of the files kept by TIME. CAIN answers to your spoken commands and runs the Time Machine for you. It can display information visually, via the terminal screen, or verbally, using its melodic chimes.

ITEM 8: BLASTER [see accompanying specifications]
This is your Standard Starship Trooper issue Plasma Pistol. It fires superheated plasma to a range of 100 metres, and the Energy Pack is sufficient for ten minutes continuous use. You have more Energy Packs in your weapons locker. Your blaster is labelled, 'For use in exceptional circumstances only'.

ITEM 9: PSIONIC ENHANCER [see accompanying specifications]
This helmet helps your Powers of the Mind by damping all other thoughts. It senses when you want to use your power and activates automatically.

ITEM 10: ENVIRONMENT SUIT [see accompanying specifications]
A light, pressurised suit for use in vacuum, inhospitable atmospheres and extreme ranges of temperature which monitors your life signals such as pulse and temperature. It is compatible with your Psionic Enhancer.

Personal Background

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Special Agent (TIME)
Codename: Falcon
For three years you have studied at the Academy as a cadet attached to TIME: the Temporal, Investigative and Monitoring Executive, and you have passed the difficult training pro- gramme with flying colours. You have been selected from the Academy to be a Special Agent because of your unusual talents, having been born with Powers of the Mind: you can sense things that others can't and even influence their actions through thought alone. These powers have been strengthened and focussed during your training and you have been issued with a Psionic Enhancer, a helmet which increases these mental powers. You have been taught to attack the minds of others with a blast of mental energy you call Thinkstrike. Your Power of Will allows you to control the minds of those weaker than you, and your Psychic Awareness allows you to sense things that others cannot, including the presence of another with such mental powers. This Psychic Awareness also lets you navigate your Time Machine through time and space. Few have such powers and even fewer are trusted with one of the small number of Time Machines in existence. You are expert in survival - including combat — armed and unarmed. History and detective powers of deduction have also been major subjects of study. You are now an Agent in the Time Police, whose job is to guard the Timelines of the past and to ensure that no-one tampers with past events in any way that would change things as they are now.

TIME, the Temporal Investigative and Monitoring Executive, was set up in Alpolis forty years ago shortly after Time Travel was discovered. The realisation that anyone with access to Time Travel could change the past so that the entire human race might cease to exist was worrying, so Time Machines were built for the Time Police in their crystal domed TIME headquarters, in order to stop this. TIME is headed by five Lords, representing the most powerful groups in the Space Federation. Each of these has Powers of the Mind, and their own Time Machine. The Executive is divided into four sections: Administrative, Research, Monitoring and the Special Agent Section (or SAS). The Monitoring Section, headed by Section Chief Jobanque, is responsible for noting any disturbances in the past, or Timelines, of the planets in the Federation. The Research Section, headed by Section Chief Skirrow is responsible for all equipment used by Special Agents and is also examining the possibilities of travel into the future, as yet impossible. Your own Special Agent Section is- headed by Section Chief Agidy Yelov, a Siriun humanoid from the Federation member planet, Sirius Secundus. Agidy Yelov and others have told you the importance of the First Law of TIME when on active service: 'A TIME Agent must, in all cases, act naturally according to the time in which he is currently operating, thus minimising any disruption of the Timelines his or her presence might be causing'. As Yelov once said to you: There's no point in coming back to 3033 if you have left an atomic hand gun near Hitler's bunker, because this would change the present - in fact, you'd probably find you had never existed!' As with all Special Agents, your bloodline has been traced back, in your case to the French Revolution in 1789 AD. Should any one of your ancestors fail to produce the next in line it would be as if you had never existed.

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The rules are very simple - you could almost play this book without reading them at all. But reading the Personal Background and, of course, the Mission Brief will help you to understand what is happening as you begin the adventure. If you come across something you don't understand, don't worry, check the Equipment List and this may give you a clue. If not, carry on anyway, it will probably become clear later.

It is April 1st 3034. On this day you are to attempt to make history by piloting your model A3 Time Machine into the far- future. No one has yet undergone Future Travel successfully. It was on the day of Agidy Yelov's escape from the confinement section of the Eiger Vault that TIME Lord Pilota made the most recent attempt. She set her Time Machine to travel to Earth in the year 4000 AD but it remained firmly rooted in the present of 3033 AD. Pilota, however, suffered severe disorientation as the Variac Drive of her machine cut in, carrying her into the void of null-space for what seemed to her like seventeen days. When she stepped out of the machine no more than an instant of real time had passed, yet she had thought that she was forever lost in the nothingness of null-space, doomed to a lifetime of boredom, until supplies of food in the Time Ship's nutrition dispenser were used up. After two months of convalescence in free-fall on Spiro's Ringworld she bravely volunteered to undertake another mission, but it was decided by the other Lords of TIME, the Keladi, R'rrllk and Silvermane the Rigellian, that too much danger was involved. No TIME Lord will be risked on so dangerous a mission.

Following your success against the Supervillain Baal you have been promoted. As the new leader of the Special Agent Section of TIME, you were responsible for finding an experienced Time Traveller to undertake Future-Travel. Not wishing to place one of your agent's lives at risk you yourself have volunteered. As you tidy your desk before setting out for the Eiger Vault you calculate your chances of success. Skirrow's techs claim to have overcome the problem of leaving null-space to enter a future timehole, and, you reflect, it would be bad for morale if you ordered one of the agents you have so recently been promoted above to what many would claim was certain death. As you speak the word which engages your desk's timelock, your mind is made up. You will be the first Future-Traveller of all time, or die trying.

1 [Score a Q]
Inside the cavernous Eiger Vault there is absolute quiet. A group of five people await you near Falcon's Wing. The tall form of Lord Pilota, the Lastlander, her body braced by an artificial exoskeleton against the gravity of Earth, moves towards you with an eery mechanical grace. Her face, pale and drawn, still reflects the horror she went through when she believed for seventeen days that she was entombed alone in the void of null- space forever. 'May all your landings be happy ones,' she says by way of wishing you good luck.

Agent Bloodhound volunteers to take your place. You use your powers of Psychic Awareness to explore Bloodhound's thoughts and you can tell that in the deepest parts of his mind he is hoping you will not allow him to try Future Travel, although you cannot help but admire his selfless courage in offering.

No Blood, I need you here, you have primary responsibility for Dyskra and Rigel Prime now, as well as Proxima Centauri and Earth prior to the Dark Ages.'

He nods but adds, jokingly; 'Who needs anyone with you around, Falcon, they'll make you Emperor of the Federation next.'

You are about to reply in the same jocular vein when Skirrow, head of the Research Section of TIME, takes your arm. He seems nervous as he tells you that he believes his technicians have solved the problem of emerging in the future. 'Of course,' he continues, 'what we cannot know is how easy it will be to come back again.' He shrugs his shoulders, his blue eyes looking disarmingly innocent. You thank him tersely, wish Lord Pilota and Bloodhound well and allow the two technicians who have checked every instrument and component of Falcon's Wing, to help you into your crash-couch. Soon you are alone and a sense of grim foreboding grips you as your mind wanders across the seas of time and space, searching, using your Psychic Awareness, for the timehole in Earth's future, 4000 AD

At last you are ready and CAIN engages Falcon's Wing's modified Variac Drive. Everything turns to grey. You can see through your grey body and through the ghostly transparent lines of the Time Ship's hull. The ship is a ghostly ball suspended in a void of absolute nothingness which stretches away in every direction to infinity. After about an hour, during which time you wait with mounting tension, the ship rematerialises and the hydraulic legs slide into position as Falcon's Wing settles with a bump. CAIN chimes, The date is March 1st, 4000 AD, Falcon.

You are the first human ever to experience Future Travel.'
'Are you suggesting that somewhere aliens have Future Travel?' you query.
'Incomplete data, I cannot respond,' chimes CAIN. Suppressing a smugness at the realisation that you have, on this rare occasion, got the better of the know-all CAIN, you switch on the outside monitor.

21
To your surprise, the camera shows the snow laden slopes of Mount Eiger. Falcon's Wing is perched precariously on a high ledge instead of inside the Eiger Vault of the future. Either there has been a small timeflux, your Psychic Awareness has let you down, or there is no longer a cavernous hollow inside the mountain. Cloud swirls suddenly about the ledge and you see something you have never before witnessed - lightning. An electrical storm is raging around the mountain tops. Electrical storms cause interference to holophone communications and the controlled weather of Earth in 3034 AD with its equal shares of rain for all save the holiday sunspots does not allow them. Either the people of 4000 AD enjoy them, or the world's weather control has failed. Your mission brief called upon you to return to Earth in 3034 AD as soon as CAIN had confirmed that you had undergone Future Travel. Will you:
Follow orders and return immediately to 3034 AD?
Try to intercept a holocommunication to see if you can learn something of this future Earth?

Try to confirm from an intercepted holocommunication that we have in fact gone into the future._________________

Kaelik wrote:

Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

FrankTrollman wrote:

As far as death and human misery goes, Tobacco is basically World War II grinding on forever with no real sign of stopping in our life times. Death camps and nuclear bombs and stuff are certainly dramatic, but public health crises are always and forever bigger than wars on the global scale.

FrankTrollman wrote:

White people are basically just horrible...The entire Reagan Revolution is just white people voting to destroy their own social safety nets because they'd rather fucking starve than let black people eat.

47
You instruct CAIN to search the holowaves and tune into a holo broadcast but it chimes, 'Shouldn't we be getting back, Falcon?'

'I want to find out what in the galaxy has caused the weather control to allow an electrical storm.' CAIN tries to reason with you, saying that you can apply to the Lords of TIME to return and investigate further when you return to 3034 AD. Will you:

Disconnect CAIN?
Do as it says and return to the Eiger Vault of3034 AD?

No option to get CAIN to explain how it knows we've actually got to the right place.

Do as the robot says, if they've waited 4 books of no foreshadowing to make it a traitor then that's on them._________________

Kaelik wrote:

Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

FrankTrollman wrote:

As far as death and human misery goes, Tobacco is basically World War II grinding on forever with no real sign of stopping in our life times. Death camps and nuclear bombs and stuff are certainly dramatic, but public health crises are always and forever bigger than wars on the global scale.

FrankTrollman wrote:

White people are basically just horrible...The entire Reagan Revolution is just white people voting to destroy their own social safety nets because they'd rather fucking starve than let black people eat.

77
As you scan the past for the timehole of the Eiger Vault in 3034 AD, Falcon's Wing rocks suddenly. CAIN chimes, The ship has been hit by a powerful electrical discharge.' It runs a control check and soon tells you that the hatch through which the flyer leaves Falcon's Wing will no longer open, due to a fused circuit. Will you:
Attempt to repair the circuit and risk a further damaging burst of lightning?
Ignore this and return to the Eiger Vault immediately?

In-character, the fuck do we care about the flyer if we're going back to headquarters anyway. Just return to Eiger.

Out-of-character, worst comes to worst we'll probably emerge not in a lightning storm and have a safer time repairing the ship._________________

Kaelik wrote:

Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

FrankTrollman wrote:

As far as death and human misery goes, Tobacco is basically World War II grinding on forever with no real sign of stopping in our life times. Death camps and nuclear bombs and stuff are certainly dramatic, but public health crises are always and forever bigger than wars on the global scale.

FrankTrollman wrote:

White people are basically just horrible...The entire Reagan Revolution is just white people voting to destroy their own social safety nets because they'd rather fucking starve than let black people eat.

Realising that you should not be requiring the use of your flyer, you have decided to ignore the fused circuit. Note that the flyer hatch doors are fused shut .

29
Using your powers of Psychic Awareness you scan the past for the timehole of the Eiger Vault in 3034 AD, wondering, once again, why you didn't materialise inside the Vault in the year 4000. As the Variac Drive engages you are sucked into the uniform greyness of the void. After about an hour in null-space, Falcon's Wing rematerialises and CAIN chimes:, 'Attention! Falcon, we are not on Earth, where have you taken us to?' You shake your head and turn on the outside camera. The vista that greets you tests your equilibrium training to the utmost. Falcon's Wing is floating inside a pool of milky juices at the bottom of a cavernous stomach, the ridged walls of which are running with droplets of steaming liquid.

'You tell me, CAIN, I set course for the Eiger Vault 3034 AD, where are we?'

'Insufficient data,' CAIN chimes. Something has gone seriously wrong. You decide to ask CAIN for a damage report and are relieved to hear that Falcon's Wing has sustained none. The camera swivels upwards, under CAIN's direction, and reveals a circular opening with an edge of what looks like serrated bone above you. If you are to find out your location you will have to get outside whatever it is you are in. You don your environment suit and ask CAIN what your chances are of piloting the flyer out through the hole above you without crashing into the stomach wall around you. CAIN responds, 'That will depend upon your reactions and your judgement. Falcon. An average human with your flying experience would have no better than a forty-nine per cent chance of success.' Will you:

Descend on foot into the milky liquid below Falcon's Wing?
Attempt to use the flyer?

The flyer hatch doors are fused shut, so we have to head out on foot anyways._________________

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OgreBattle wrote:

The Den is about the equivalent of an S&M fetish. The Den's favorite way of jerking it is to have hurr durr arguments that run on for dozens of pages. Some of it raise interesting points, but most of it is just slinging cum on the walls. Like strangulation to get an erection, being a huge [EDITED] gets you off even stronger. Occasionally Frank struts out in intimidating 12" stiletto thigh highs, a thick, fearsome whip (which is a situational weapon choice, by the way) taut in his firm grip, and you put on your gimp suits, anticipating the lashing of his sharp tongue with a perverse quiver.

FrankTrollman wrote:

Victorian Racism is like level 2 evolved racism. You have to get your racism up to a certain level and then trade it while holding a dark stone to get your racism to turn into Victorian Racism.

DSMatticus wrote:

Dragonlance being a shitshow is perhaps the greatest truth, the singular truth from which all else follows.

Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

FrankTrollman wrote:

As far as death and human misery goes, Tobacco is basically World War II grinding on forever with no real sign of stopping in our life times. Death camps and nuclear bombs and stuff are certainly dramatic, but public health crises are always and forever bigger than wars on the global scale.

FrankTrollman wrote:

White people are basically just horrible...The entire Reagan Revolution is just white people voting to destroy their own social safety nets because they'd rather fucking starve than let black people eat.

You step onto the Main Access Disc which turns to gas beneath you and invisible tractor beams lower you into the milky liquid up to your chest. Beneath your feet are spiny ridges of woody fibre. You walk gingerly towards the arcing ridged wall. Make a Chance Roll.

If you score 1, 2 or 5...2, so:

173
You carefully edge the rest of the way to the ridged wall of the prison that encloses Falcon's Wing. It arches above you towards the puckered rim that shows a deep magenta sky, high above. The climb up one of the ridges will be arduous and tricky. If you would like to use your blaster to cut foot and hand holes, turn to 199. If you prefer to climb unaided, turn to 207.

We appear to have time shifted into a fish. Risk climbing unaided rather than pissing off whatever we're inside._________________

Kaelik wrote:

Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

FrankTrollman wrote:

As far as death and human misery goes, Tobacco is basically World War II grinding on forever with no real sign of stopping in our life times. Death camps and nuclear bombs and stuff are certainly dramatic, but public health crises are always and forever bigger than wars on the global scale.

FrankTrollman wrote:

White people are basically just horrible...The entire Reagan Revolution is just white people voting to destroy their own social safety nets because they'd rather fucking starve than let black people eat.

The climb strains your arms terribly, they begin to shake as you reach the overhang before the puckered lip of the living cavern. You will have to use all your strength of will if you are to force yourself onto the lip itself. Make a Power of Will Roll, but if you have less than 20 points of Endurance, subtract 2 from the result.

If you score 6-12...got 2 and 1, so:

The ache in your arms grows until you suddenly lose all feeling in them. Next you feel yourself falling down towards Falcon's Wing as your grip slides on the corky ridge. You bounce on top of your ship. The jarring impact does not damage the armoured hull, but you lose 2 Endurance points as you are badly bruised and battered. You slide down and off the curved side of the Time Machine into the milky liquid below and your leg is pricked by a thorn or spine. Your environment suit is torn and the milky liquid bathes your left thigh. You heave yourself off the spike and the plasnet seal of your suit closes the hole at once, but a terrible itching distracts your thoughts. The irritant contained in the liquid is affecting your nervous system. Remove 1 from ALL your modifiers until you can find an antidote. You carefully edge the rest of the way to the ridged wall of the prison that encloses Falcon's Wing. It arches above you towards the puckered rim that shows a deep magenta sky, high above. The climb up one of the ridges will be arduous and tricky. You will have to use your blaster to cut foot and hand holes.

199
Using short blasts which turn the mush and corky wall into vapour you cut handholds at easy intervals. It is a slow process, as you must wait for the holes to cool a little before putting your suited hand inside them. As you cut you notice a purplish liquid seeping out of what seems like a fleshy membrane below the corky surface. It fills the holes, staining your suit and running down the ridge in rivulets. You are about three-quarters of the way to the puckered lip, when the gloom deepens. Looking up you can see a copper-coloured insect as large as Falcon's Wing flying down towards you. It has red compound eyes and vicious looking silver mouthparts, like several threshing scimitars. Its body is metallic and segmented and you can see black blood pulsing through the vessels of its translucent wings. Its feathery antennae flutter questingly towards you, as it clings to the underside of the rim above you. Will you:

Stay absolutely still, hoping it will go away?
Use your blaster on it?
Try to find out if it is intelligent, using your Psychic Awareness?
Try to Thinkstrike it?

Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

FrankTrollman wrote:

As far as death and human misery goes, Tobacco is basically World War II grinding on forever with no real sign of stopping in our life times. Death camps and nuclear bombs and stuff are certainly dramatic, but public health crises are always and forever bigger than wars on the global scale.

FrankTrollman wrote:

White people are basically just horrible...The entire Reagan Revolution is just white people voting to destroy their own social safety nets because they'd rather fucking starve than let black people eat.

The Den is about the equivalent of an S&M fetish. The Den's favorite way of jerking it is to have hurr durr arguments that run on for dozens of pages. Some of it raise interesting points, but most of it is just slinging cum on the walls. Like strangulation to get an erection, being a huge [EDITED] gets you off even stronger. Occasionally Frank struts out in intimidating 12" stiletto thigh highs, a thick, fearsome whip (which is a situational weapon choice, by the way) taut in his firm grip, and you put on your gimp suits, anticipating the lashing of his sharp tongue with a perverse quiver.

FrankTrollman wrote:

Victorian Racism is like level 2 evolved racism. You have to get your racism up to a certain level and then trade it while holding a dark stone to get your racism to turn into Victorian Racism.

DSMatticus wrote:

Dragonlance being a shitshow is perhaps the greatest truth, the singular truth from which all else follows.

244
As you crane your neck, watching the huge insect, it pushes away from the lip, falling back first, then righting itself with a loud whir of wings as it flies towards you. Using your power of Psychic Awareness you probe its mind and it spins away from you at the last moment, alighting on hooked claws on the ridge next to where you cling. You can tell that it thought you were a kind of burrowing grub, a delicacy that it would have eaten with relish, but it was the smell of the purplish sap which attracted it inside the Buloam tree. It cuts a series of V-shaped lines in the ridge to which it is clinging, one above the other, and joins them with a single downward slash of its silver mouthparts. It thinks at you, 'Where is your Queen-nest?' as it slurps the purple sap that gathers in the cuts it has made with a black hose, like ah elephant's trunk. It no longer regards you as food. If you wish to ignore it and climb on, turn to 296. If you would like to think of Earth in 3034 AD turn to 305. If you think, 'I have no Queen' at the insect, turn to 317.

The Den is about the equivalent of an S&M fetish. The Den's favorite way of jerking it is to have hurr durr arguments that run on for dozens of pages. Some of it raise interesting points, but most of it is just slinging cum on the walls. Like strangulation to get an erection, being a huge [EDITED] gets you off even stronger. Occasionally Frank struts out in intimidating 12" stiletto thigh highs, a thick, fearsome whip (which is a situational weapon choice, by the way) taut in his firm grip, and you put on your gimp suits, anticipating the lashing of his sharp tongue with a perverse quiver.

FrankTrollman wrote:

Victorian Racism is like level 2 evolved racism. You have to get your racism up to a certain level and then trade it while holding a dark stone to get your racism to turn into Victorian Racism.

DSMatticus wrote:

Dragonlance being a shitshow is perhaps the greatest truth, the singular truth from which all else follows.

305
You visualise the world that you know, its cities, stratocruisers and leisure domes, the blue sky and the animal reserves. The gigantic insect becomes agitated, its thoughts are so alien to yours that you cannot be sure what its reaction is. It flies towards you once more. Will you:

Use your blaster?
Attempt to Thinkstrike it?
Let yourself fall from your position on the rock ridge?

Thinkstrike seems the closest we have to a non lethal weapon and if it has enough of a brain to communicate we ought to be able to slap its brain._________________

Kaelik wrote:

Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

FrankTrollman wrote:

As far as death and human misery goes, Tobacco is basically World War II grinding on forever with no real sign of stopping in our life times. Death camps and nuclear bombs and stuff are certainly dramatic, but public health crises are always and forever bigger than wars on the global scale.

FrankTrollman wrote:

White people are basically just horrible...The entire Reagan Revolution is just white people voting to destroy their own social safety nets because they'd rather fucking starve than let black people eat.